Monday, March 9, 2015

How do Empires hunt bears? The control of natural resources from ancient Rome to our times

Hunting the Russian bear is turning out to be a difficult task for the global empire.(image from homesweethome)

You probably know the joke that starts with the question "how do economists hunt bears?" The answer is, "they don't, but they believe that if bears are paid enough, they'll hunt themselves." It is a good illustration of the awesome power of money. It doesn't work so well with bears, but, if paid enough, people will engage in all sorts of nasty and unpleasant activities, including hunting and killing other human beings.

The question about bears can be translated to another situation. You know that empires are large structures dedicated to collecting resources from the periphery and concentrating them in the center. This is, obviously, disadvantageous for the periphery. So, how do the imperial elites convince people living in the peripheries to surrender their resources to them? The answer is similar to that of the joke about economists and bears: by paying them enough.

This point needs some specification and, as it often happens, the past gives us a guide for the present. So, let's consider the case of the Roman Empire, whose cycle we know very well. The Romans had a well developed and tested method of empire building. First, they would attack and defeat a bordering kingdom. Then, they would proceed to exterminate or enslave the local elites. At this point, they would replace them with a partly or fully Romanized new elite to govern the territory, from then on called a "province."

The critical feature of the system was that it could not be managed just by brute force; it would have been too expensive. So, the Romans needed to convince the local elites to act as tax collectors for them. Not an easy task, in principle, since the local elites could have reasoned that it was more convenient for them to keep all the taxes for themselves. Occasionally, indeed, provinces revolted in order to regain their independence. For instance, the Jewish uprising that started in 66 AD in Palestine was almost successful and it shook the empire to its foundations. But, on the whole, the provinces remained remarkably quiet up to the end the Roman Empire. The bears were thoroughly tamed.

How did the Romans manage to keep their Empire together so well and for such a long time? It was, obviously a question of control. The entities we call "states" (and their more aggressive version known as "empires") exist because the center can control the periphery. This control takes various forms, but, basically, it is the result of the financial system: money. In Roman times, the provincial elites were paid with Roman money to act as tax collectors and they could also make more Roman money in other ways, for instance by enlisting in the Roman army. With the Roman currency, they had access to all sorts of luxuries available in the Empire and, in particular, to the gigantic emporium of all goods and services that was Rome itself. It was safer for them to accept this situation rather than embarking in the difficult and risky idea of starting a war against the mighty Roman Empire. In a way, the bear was paid to hunt itself.

The system worked nicely for several centuries, as long as the Empire could coin money. As I argued in an earlier post of mine, the fall of the Roman Empire was not so much a question of loss of resources, but of loss of control. When the Romans ran out of gold and silver from their Spanish mines, they lost the capacity of creating their currency and they couldn't keep a functioning financial system. Without a financial system, they had no way to control the flow of resources from the periphery to the center. The African and Asiatic granaries that had provided food for the Romans collapsed for lack of maintenance and, without sufficient food for its population, the Empire could not survive. If you don't pay the bear, it will eat you.

And we are back to our times: the bear is alive and well; roaring at the Eastern borders of the global empire. In the past, for a while it seemed that the bear could be convinced to hunt itself. The Russian elite seemed to be happy to be paid to have access to the luxuries that the global empire could provide and they accepted to become part of the globalized financial system. But, at some point, the bear bared its teeth and growled, refusing to be tamed.

What went wrong? One problem that we can identify if is that the Romans would make sure that the military forces of a defeated kingdom were crushed and eliminated before transforming it into a province; the bear was thoroughly defanged before being tamed. In the modern case, however, it is not so easy to defeat a nuclear bear that maintains a considerable fighting power.

But, the main factor that kept the Russian bear alive and angry may be a much more fundamental one. The global empire - just as the Roman Empire, long ago, - needs a fully functional financial system if it is to keep expanding. When the Roman financial system collapsed, the empire collapsed, too. Now, the global financial system doesn't look in good health, to say the least and a new financial collapse, after the one of 2008, may be just around the corner. In these conditions, it is hard to think that the bear can be paid to hunt itself. That must have been understood even in the capitals of the global empire. So, we are seeing a belated attempt to kill the bear by strangling it - destroying it using economic sanctions. Considering, however, that Russia controls mineral resources that are vital for the empire, choking the bear to death (even assuming that it were possible) may not be the best strategy, really.

________________________________________

A version of the bear joke, but with elephants (h/t Marie Odile)

MATHEMATICIANS hunt elephants by going to Africa, throwing out everything
that is not an elephant, and catching one of whatever is left.

EXPERIENCED MATHEMATICIANS will attempt to prove the existence of at
least one unique elephant before proceeding to step 1 as a subordinate
exercise.

PROFESSORS OF MATHEMATICS will prove the existence of at least one unique
elephant and then leave the detection and capture of an actual elephant
as an exercise for their graduate students.

COMPUTER SCIENTISTS hunt elephants by exercising Algorithm A: 1. Go
to Africa. 2. Start at the Cape of Good Hope. 3. Work northward in an orderly
manner, traversing the continent alternately east and west. 4. During each
traverse pass, a. Catch each animal seen. b. Compare each animal caught
to a known elephant. c. Stop when a match is detected.

EXPERIENCED COMPUTER PROGRAMMERS modify Algorithm A by placing a known
elephant in Cairo to ensure that the algorithm will terminate.

ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMERS prefer to execute Algorithm A on their
hands and knees.

HARDWARE ENGINEERS hunt elephants by going to Africa, catching gray
animals at random, and stopping when any one of them weighs within plus
or minus 15 percent of any previously observed elephant.

ECONOMISTS don't hunt elephants, but they believe that if elephants
are paid enough, they will hunt themselves.

STATISTICIANS hunt the first animal they see N times and call it an
elephant.

CONSULTANTS don't hunt elephants, and many have never hunted anything
at all, but they can be hired by the hour to advise those people who do.

OPERATIONS RESEARCH CONSULTANTS can also measure the correlation of
hat size and bullet color to the efficiency of elephant-hunting strategies,
if someone else will only identify the elephants.

POLITICIANS don't hunt elephants, but they will share the elephants
you catch with the people who voted for them.

LAWYERS don't hunt elephants, but they do follow the herds around arguing
about who owns the droppings.

SOFTWARE LAWYERS will claim that they own an entire herd based on the
look and feel of one dropping.

VICE PRESIDENTS OF ENGINEERING, RESEARCH, AND DEVELOPMENT try hard to
hunt elephants, but their staffs are designed to prevent it. When the vice
president does get to hunt elephants, the staff will try to ensure that
all possible elephants are completely prehunted before the vice president
sees them. If the vice president does happen to see a elephant, the staff
will: (1) compliment the vice president's keen eyesight and (2) enlarge
itself to prevent any recurrence.

SENIOR MANAGERS set broad elephant-hunting policy based on the assumption
that elephants are just like field mice, but with deeper voices.

QUALITY ASSURANCE INSPECTORS ignore the elephants and look for mistakes
the other hunters made when they were packing the jeep.

SALES PEOPLE don't hunt elephants, but spend their time selling elephants
they haven't caught, for delivery two days before the season opens.

SOFTWARE SALES PEOPLE ship the first thing they catch and write up an
invoice for an elephant.

HARDWARE SALES PEOPLE catch rabbits, paint them gray, and sell them
as desktop elephants.

Hello! This is Ugo Bardi - I tend to overextend myself on the Web by writing a lot of stuff. Presently, my blog in English is titled "Cassandra's Legacy". In English, I have another blog a little more esoteric, titled Chimeras. The first is dedicated to sustainability, the second to mythology, history, and art. See also my latest book, "The Seneca Effect," Springer 2017.

"But, on the whole, the provinces remained remarkably quiet up to the end the Roman Empire. The bears were thoroughly tamed.

Not so when Emperors changed Rome could shake to its core with civil wars. Sometime an emperor would be killed by great treachery often by the treachery of his own Praetorian guard. Sometimes the succeeding and unworthy next emperor would then be brought down by the victorious general of legion against legion wars.

But among the emperors there were a few good men of a golden age. Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius were men of peace and culture. The rule of law had civilized by their reign. But fools followed and the army did not want anyone who would end their corruption such as Pertinax intended to do. Vespasian promoted history by offering writers money. Trajan gained his peoples trust. Among the murdering animals there were a few good men. The light of day turns to dark night, but night becomes day. Good times bad times, Rome threw a long party.

A major reason the empire fell which is never discussed is overpopulation. " The horrid practice, so familiar to the ancients, of exposing or murdering their new-born infants, was become every day more frequent in the provinces, and especially in Italy. It was the effect of distress; and the distress was principally occasioned by the intolerant burden of taxes, and by the vexatious as well as cruel prosecutions of the officers of the revenue against their insolvent debtors. The less opulent or less industrious part of mankind, instead of rejoicing in an increase of family, deemed it an act of paternal tenderness to release their children from the impending miseries of a life which they themselves were unable to support. "

This was in the reign of Constantine 306-337 AD. He was an accomplished general. His legions had an unbroken record of success and he reunited an empire that had been broken into many pieces.

Constantine promoted birth control. " The laws of Constantine against rapes were dictated with very little indulgence for the most amiable weaknesses of human nature; since the description of that crime was applied not only to the brutal violence which compelled, but even to the gentle seduction which might persuade, an unmarried woman, under the age of twenty-five, to leave the house of her parents. "The successful ravisher was punished with death; and as if simple death was inadequate to the enormity of his guilt, he was either burnt alive, or torn in pieces by wild beasts in the amphitheatre. The virgin's declaration, that she had been carried away with her own consent, instead of saving her lover, exposed her to share his fate. "

Quotes are by Edward Gibbon.

Loss of resources leads to loss of control which then produces a tyrant.

True, but my point was different. It was that provinces rarely or never tried to regain their independence during the decline of the Empire. Then, of course, Roman generals fought against each other for the title of Emperor and committed all sorts of atrocities. But it is another story.

"A major reason the empire fell which is never discussed is overpopulation."

Maybe not "never", but (as frequently happens with almost every aspect of the birth control taboo of our times) very rarely indeed. BC is indeed the other kind of... "bearlephant" in the global room! ;-D

A really interesting issue on this topic is the ipotized role of the Silphium plant ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium ) in this contex, as a strong birth control remedy, and how its extinction originated (o at least exacerbate) the RE overpopulation problem.

Very good points but I would have preferred a picture of an American bald eagle with Nazi and Zionist insignia on its wings ready to swoop down instead of (or at least alongside of) that fascist looking Russian bear at the top of the post since that indirectly reinforces the MSM propaganda, even if only unintentionally. I doubt the Eagle would be able to fly back to its nest carrying such a big heavy bear in its claws. All the extra methane and CO2 in the air might also cramp its flying style and cause it to crash together with its prey into a an acidic ocean with the PH of lemon juice. Perhaps a fitting end for both the Eagle and the Bear (and the Dragon too) which the Romans had to worry about a lot less.

Well written, thanks. Helps me understand the Ukrainian situation. The US and the EU can't handle an independent and strong Russia and therefore couldn't allow Ukraine to become a trading partner with Russia even if it was also going to be a trading partner (with the required changes to their judicial system, etc.) with the EU. The need for power and money via Empires is tough stuff and requires discipline.

Ugo Bardi's blog

This blog deals with the future of humankind in view of such things as the overexploitation of natural resourecs and the effects of global warming. It is a bit catastrophistic, I know, but, after all, the ancient prophetess, Cassandra (above in a painting by Evelyn de Morgan) turned out to have been right!

Follow by Email

Subscribe To

Listen! for no more the presage of my soul, Bride-like, shall peer from its secluding veil; But as the morning wind blows clear the east,More bright shall blow the wind of prophecy,And I will speak, but in dark speech no more.(Aeschylus, Agamemnon)

The Seneca Effect

The Seneca Effect: is this what our future looks like?

Chimeras: another blog by UB

Another blog by Ugo Bardi; it is dedicated to art, myths, literature, and history with a special attention to ancient monsters and deities.

Rules of the blog

I try to publish at least a post every week, typically on Mondays, but additional posts often appear on different days. Comments are moderated: no insults, no hate, no trolls. You may reproduce my posts as you like, citing the source is appreciated!

About the author

Ugo Bardi teaches physical chemistry at the University of Florence, in Italy. He is interested in resource depletion, system dynamics modeling, climate science and renewable energy. Contact: ugo.bardi(whirlything)unifi.it